Jewish graves in Berdichev, Ukraine. They
targeted the tomb of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak,
an 18th-century Chasidic master.
Thaler discovered the damage to the building March 2. He found windows smashed and part of a wall missing. The structure houses the grave of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev, one of the students of the Baal Shem Tov's successor, the Maggid of Mezrich. He was a contemporary of the first Chabad Rebbe, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi.
When Thaler returned the following day, the wall had been broken down completely and someone had scratched a swastika into the building's door. Police, along with Mayor Masily Mazur, visited the site March 4 and opened an investigation.
Alleged Vandal of Chasidic Master’s Tomb Arrested in Ukraine
Jewish graves in Berdichev, Ukraine. They
targeted the tomb of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak,
an 18th-century Chasidic master.
BERDICHEV, Ukraine — Police in Berdichev, Ukraine, arrested the leader of a new anti-Semitic group responsible for vandalizing the tomb of 18th-century Chasidic master, according to Rabbi Moshe Thaler, a Chabad-Lubavitch emissary there.
Thaler discovered the damage to the building March 2. He found windows smashed and part of a wall missing. The structure houses the grave of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev, one of the students of the Baal Shem Tov’s successor, the Maggid of Mezrich. He was a contemporary of the first Chabad Rebbe, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi.
When Thaler returned the following day, the wall had been broken down completely and someone had scratched a swastika into the building’s door. Police, along with Mayor Masily Mazur, visited the site March 4 and opened an investigation.
But again on Wednesday, Thaler, who directs the city’s Jewish community with wife Chana Thaler, discovered that vandals had returned to the cemetery, spray-painting neo-Nazi grafitti and swastikas on the tomb, other graves and a Holocaust memorial at the cemetery’s entrance. They apparently also broke the remaining windows of the Chasidic sage’s tomb.
